Here There be Fractals
by Kodiak Bear Country
Summary: Aftermath of a mission gone wrong Sheppard recovers from torture and Rodney tries to be there for him. Slash though mild, it is still McKaySheppard established relationship.


**AN:** This is a slash story featuring McKay/Sheppard. If that's not your thing, you've been warned. This was written a while back, and I'm getting around to posting pieces at other archive sites.**  
**

**Here There be Fractals**  
by Kodiakbear

The first day they asked for his name. It took two days, no sleep, and multiple beatings to get that his name was John. Pointing out that they knew it already only earned him more bruises.

The fourth day they asked where he came from. It took four days, and two injections of drugs, before he admitted he came from a galaxy far, far away. He didn't bother pointing out that they knew that, too. It didn't save him from more bruises.

The ninth day they asked him what the technology they'd confiscated from his wrist meant. He told them it was a screwometer, meant for detecting when anyone in a hundred yard vicinity was going to get captured, beaten, and tortured for inane information. Apparently, John says, he forgot to listen to his screwometer the day they captured him.

John didn't remember the tenth day.

The eleventh day they claimed he was all alone, and he wouldn't live to see the twelfth if he didn't do as they wanted. The effect was ruined when the door busted inward, and Ronon pointed his lethal weapon at the main interrogator and said, "Give me a reason."

Sadly, the coward doesn't. He waves at a guard to unlock John. When the shackles fall off, Sheppard rubs his wrists.

"You coming?" asks Ronon gruffly, waving his pistol in the direction of the broken door. "Because if this is a bad time -"

"I'd really like to," starts John, "but things haven't exactly been Camp Hiawatha here."

A guard moves for his own weapon and without taking his eyes from Sheppard, Ronon shoots him. The thud as the guard hits the wooden floor causes the head interrogator to cringe.

Ronon trains his weapon back on the lead guy and stares at him for enough time to get the intent across – move and die, then glances back to Sheppard, and assesses his physical condition. Finding it lacking, he shouts over his shoulder, "Doc, Sheppard needs you!"

There's a clatter as feet run onto the porch, and Beckett comes to a stop, looking uncertainly at the debris that used to be the doorway. He stares at the scene; Ronon holding a gun on the man standing behind Sheppard, and Sheppard himself, a bruised and bloody disaster slumped in a shabby chair.

Swallowing down his nerves, Beckett steps through gingerly, and kneels next to John. "How are we doing, Colonel?" he asks, even as he's drawing supplies out of his bag that he'll need.

"Not so good, Doc," John admits quietly.

Carson nods, and studies his patient, before tapping the earpiece and calling for the litter to transport Sheppard back to Atlantis.

This is the part that Sheppard never likes. Feeling helpless. Being reduced to having others take care of him. He closes his eyes, and lets himself drift while Beckett does a crude field examination, and then hands are on his legs and arms, and he feels himself lifted on to the cot.

He tries hard not to moan with the movement, but fails utterly. Days of beatings have left almost every inch of him covered in bruises.

"Sorry, Colonel. You'll feel better in a moment, promise."

And that's when John feels his jacket being pulled off on his right side, and he prepares himself for the sharp pinch of the needle. John dislikes shots, not because of any needle phobia, but merely because it's a reminder that he's been reduced to an invalid – again.

The slow rocking motion tells him that he's being transported home, finally. John really wants to be home. Atlantis. Where no one will chain him to a chair, and ask him the same questions long into the night, hitting him with every wrong answer, which was almost every one he gave. It's the simple things that matter most when they're gone.

The hand that touches his shoulder gives the identity away. It's soft, gentle, but surprisingly firm and confident. "Teyla," John whispers.

It's suddenly hitting him. The bravado. The pain. The fear. At first he thought he'd get through it, and they'd rescue him. Then the sleep deprivation and nights alone did what the captors couldn't – made him worry, and made him doubt. When he was all alone with only his hurts for company, his mind wandered back to the faces he needed to comfort him, because they weren't there.

"Is McKay -"

Teyla knows he's asking if Rodney was okay. The escape from Synthra was dubious, his captivity proof. The so-called allies said the right things, signed the right papers, and then tried to keep them hostage for the weapons and medicine without paying in crops and Intel.

It'd been a desperate run for the gate, and when Rodney had fallen with a gunshot wound to the thigh, John had dropped and waved for Ronon to scoop McKay and run. When John had tried to follow after covering their retreat, he found himself outflanked and cut-off. Heroics had a habit of coming back and biting you in the ass like that.

The hand lingers for another soul soothing second before pulling away. "He is recovering. He did not…like…being left behind."

Even though John still keeps his eyes closed, he utters a knowing chuckle, because he could imagine the verbal lashing Rodney flayed the others with.

Somewhere en route, the combination of darkness, drugs, and rocking motion lulls him into slumber, and when he next wakes up, John feels groggy, hung-over and in more pain than he thought possible.

"I thought you'd decided to go on vacation or something."

Rodney. John sighs, and takes a good strong breath in, or at least he tries to, but the pain ripping through his chest reminds him that shallow breaths are good.

"I think I should've stayed unconscious," admits John, opening his eyes and trying to focus on the blob to his left that's got to be McKay.

The blob moves towards him, limping awkwardly on his leg. So, definitely Rodney, and the blob even speaks again. "You weren't unconscious. Beckett had you on excessive amounts of morphine. The only reason you're awake is because there was an emergency in the chemistry lab, and the nurse can't read his handwriting."

"I'm surprised you didn't order the nurse to hunt him down and get it deciphered anyway." And sadly, John kind of wishes McKay had. Because this being awake shit was even worse than he'd imagined it'd be. The constant cold in the cell, and the beatings - after a while it had just sort of overloaded his nerves. He'd hurt like hell, but it was this pain that just flowed around him, and it was as if he'd been lifted above it. Now, free of the restraints making his limbs numb, and no new beatings to shock his nerves into whiny submission, every inch of him was crying from the damage.

The blob is close enough now that the angular lines of Rodney's jaw straighten, and sharpen into focus. His hair is mussed, and the dark bags under McKay's eyes speak of restless nights. Rodney's quiet, subdued, and it's not a natural state, which alarms John enough to rise over his pain…a little.

"I'm sorry," says Rodney. He gestures at John, and though most of his body is covered with blankets, he knows that McKay is referring to the bandages hidden under the sheets. The stitches that are knitting his skin back together, and the bruises – God, the bruises that take up whole continents on his chest, and back, and everywhere. "If I hadn't gotten shot -"

"Faster than a speeding train, able to dodge fast bullets," John manages to grin slightly, but he dissolves into a coughing fit before he can finish the mantra. Rodney had once said that everyone thought he was Superman, but even with the joke that nobody really thought that he was, the truth - well, they did. Rodney was everybody's different kind of Superman. He fought the fight with his brains, and it made a difference, but up against a bullet, it wasn't enough.

They aren't alone, and so John knows that Rodney won't admit to how worried he was that he'd never touch John's face again, or trace the hairline from his navel to those places that only McKay got to go. And the reason John knows, is because at the worst of it in that cell, he'd thought the same thing.

"Apparently the dodging needs work." McKay moves, and John watches. The limping shows that even with the passage of almost two weeks, Rodney's leg is messed up. The clumsiness tells of the lack of sleep that the eyes spoke of. The shaking hand as he grabs a glass of water and holds it out for John, says that the fear of losing Sheppard wasn't gone just because he'd been rescued.

John is also surprised by how much his own hands shake as he takes the cup. Rodney's not so strong hands slip behind his shoulders, and help John lean forward while he drinks. The water is heaven. He knows that the IV has taken care of his body's physical needs, but nothing compares with getting to slake your thirst with clear, cool water that isn't fouled and thrown at you, or dumped on your head and you're reduced to licking your lips and tilting your head to get as much run-off from your own body into your mouth as you can.

After John is resettled, and feeling tenser from the increasing pain, he waits for Rodney. McKay stands restlessly beside him. Sheppard knows he's doing a lousy job of hiding just how badly he feels right now, but then again, so is McKay. It wasn't a matter of if there'd be emotional fall-out from this, but a matter of when.

Rodney was a deep feeler, a black hole of emotions. They sucked inward, and where they went after, John never knew. When Gall had died, John had tried to get McKay to talk. He'd told John it wasn't the first time someone had killed themselves for the greater good, and it wouldn't be the last. And then Rodney had repeated that same sentiment when they'd curled tiredly in each other's arms after the wraith had been fooled with the cloaking technology, abandoning their Siege of the city, and John had tried to tell him he was sorry for the suicide run.

If the pain hadn't driven him into taut quietness, afraid to talk because he didn't want to hear his own voice tremble, like he knew his body was beginning to, he would've tried again...try to get Rodney to talk about it. But the agony of abuse was rising strong, like the tide on an early morning walk across a sandy seashore, and just like the strong incoming waves, John was being pulled relentlessly back to his bad place.

"I'm going to get Carson, and drag him back here if I have to," Rodney finally whispers. John wonders how Rodney knew that even the sounds around him were beginning to hurt.

Things blur shortly after, but John knows that Carson arrives, and the morphine shot is delivered. He hears Rodney berating Beckett, and hears the regret in Carson's sharp responses. It's only later, when Rodney's either sleeping or gone, that he hears Beckett deliver one of the harshest tongue-lashings to the nurse, and John realizes Carson has more of a backbone than he'd assumed.

The second day he was back home, John lets Rodney spoon soup for him. The shakiness was apparently a result of the drugs they'd used on him. Lingering nerve damage that would recede with time, but for now, Sheppard had to give in to the help offered.

The third day, John gets frustrated and knocks the bowl from Rodney's own hands, making a mess, and wishing he felt strong enough to retreat from the overwhelming presence of having people hovering.

The fourth day, Carson delivers the bad news that the bones in one of his hands weren't healing because there were tiny microscopic fractures. The cast goes on, and it's his right hand, which only makes him feel more frustrated.

The fifth day, McKay brings books about PTSD and tells John he needs to talk about it. The bruises have deepened, and settled in for the long haul, making him look gruesome. Sheppard doesn't know whether to tell Rodney that the books won't help, or tell him that everything will be fine. Both are probably lies.

The sixth, seventh and eighth days John doesn't remember. A bacterial infection took hold from one of the open wounds, and according to Rodney, and even an unusually pale Beckett, it'd been hairy for a while. The high fever brings back the shakiness, and weakness, and again he has to fight off the bubbling anger that boils underneath his surfaces.

The ninth day, a nurse makes the mistake of commenting how close he and Rodney seem to be. John almost throws up.

The tenth day, he can almost stand to look in a mirror again. The bruises are beginning to fade, and break, but the colors are sickly yellows, and purples, and greens.

The eleventh day, Beckett signs his discharge papers, lecturing him on the lingering weakness in his right hand, and what to watch for in case any of the bruises that are being broken down by his body should try to break off into a clot. He needs to take the blood thinner pills and the other…pills, twice a day. The other ones, he knew, were for his mental state, and not his physical.

That night, he lays in bed next to Rodney. John knows he's recovering, but the nightmares aren't always stopped by Beckett's happy pills, and now Rodney will be there for each one that does come unbidden at the scariest of hours. The time before the dawn, where his mind refuses to stop remembering.

"I'm not good at saying what needs to be said," admits Rodney. He's whispering in the darkness, and slides closer to John.

"Nothing needs to be said," insists Sheppard. He really just wants everyone to stop looking at him like he's cracked china, irreversibly damaged.

The tired snort against his neck tells him that Rodney doesn't agree, before McKay rolls away, and the lamp flickers to life.

"You were beaten, and tortured for two weeks. If it were me, would you think that once I was rescued, what's in the past is in the past, and accept 'I don't need to talk about it'?"

John doesn't move from his position, lying flat on his back. The sheet was pulled off his chest when Rodney had moved, and now rests skewed across his waist, just above John's hips. The revealed bruises almost make him want to pull the sheet back up, but he can feel Rodney's eyes on him…on them. "I'm not you, Rodney. I'm trained to deal with this."

"Bull shit. The military is delusional. They offer classes in coping with torture. Classes. Nothing like a little OJT to show you how ineffective that is." Rodney's acidic tone makes it all too clear what he thinks about the inadequacy in training.

John's anger surfaces, and he can't help it. The emotion has been dancing like oil and water, skimming just above his ability to knock it away deep inside. "They can't actually torture us in training," he snaps snidely. "What we get is the best we can do."

Rodney surprises John by matching his anger. He slams a hand against the nightstand, by the lamp. "It's not good enough!" McKay's eyes crumple, and he lifts his hand to his mouth and mutters, "Ow."

When he looks again at John, Sheppard's equally tortured by the lost expression. "I can't fix this," Rodney says, waving at John's battered body. "All I could do from the time Ronon picked me up like some tossed away baggage, was let everyone else take control. The first days that passed, and every day after, they assured me 'we're working on a rescue', but each day I'd lay there in the infirmary and count the minutes, and the hours, and imagine what they were doing to you." The self-deprecating look snakes across his face. "Apparently my imagination is just as good as what everyone claims."

"What do you need from me, Rodney?" John asks, strained. He's still painfully aware of the light showing off his injuries, and wishes McKay would just go away.

"What I need -" Rodney drifts off, but he's staring at John with a mixture of desire and disappointment. "You can't give what I need right now."

John gestures for McKay to come close again. He knows. And he knows Rodney's right. It'll probably be another week before he feels up to anything that physically demanding. "Just…" he swallows the emotion down, because damn if he doesn't feel wrecked, "be here. Stay with me, and stop expecting me to give you assurances that it's going to be fine. It is, eventually. Even the deepest cut heals, Rodney. It just takes time."

Reluctantly, McKay slides close again, as if afraid to touch John. Afraid he'll break, and shatter into a million pieces, and he'll never be the Sheppard he was before.

"I'm not gonna break," John whispers huskily.

Rodney slides a tentative hand under John's head, and almost pulls back when he encounters scabs from where the beatings had split skin. The stitches were beginning to dissolve. He settles in, trying to find a comfortable position that wouldn't shift John much.

The light casts a muted yellow glow in the room, and John debates asking McKay to turn it off, but decides against it. He worries that if Rodney moved away again, he wouldn't come back. And as much as John wants Rodney to leave him alone, he also wants him to stay.

The finger against his skin startles him, and he pushes his chin to his chest to see what McKay's doing. The fingers are tracing the outer edges of the bruises low on his abdomen.

"It's like fractals," Rodney says quietly.

John knows what fractals are. Mathematical equations that generate beautiful patterns, irregular, chaotic. He doesn't like the remaining marks that remind him of what he went through, but with one word, Rodney manages to find a way to make him look at the scars and bruises in a new way.

"I wish they weren't there," he admits, his voice gruff from the pills that were beginning to make him sleepy and tired.

The tracing on his skin is lulling him further into the void, and just as he drifts off, McKay murmurs, "They won't be much longer." The finger-light touch continues to move upward, and McKay whispers, "Here there be fractals, and I won't ever forget. The geometry of damage is embedded forever."

John knows that Rodney thinks he's already asleep. He wants to stay awake, but he falls away, disturbed by the unseen damage in Rodney. The black hole had been given more fodder for the feeding, and it was growing.

**The End**


End file.
